


the salt and the sweet together

by consumptive_sphinx



Series: only in the shallow water [2]
Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluffy angst? Angsty fluff?, M/M, Selkie AU, Suicidal Ideation, not discussed in detail and mostly implied but definitely there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 01:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10322090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: (Fact: Sea otters anchor themselves in kelp forests in order to stay in place while they sleep.)(Fact: With Will here and holding him, Tenzing could almost feel like he is home.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueJayDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueJayDragon/gifts).



Tharkay sits on the deck of the  _ Allegiance _ , staring off at the horizon with an unreadable expression. They are not alone — it is, after all, a ship — but the only sailors within earshot do not appear to be listening. Laurence watches him for a few moments, but if Tharkay notices he doesn't say anything. 

“Are you alright?” Laurence asks, and sits down next to him. 

He doesn't respond, but his expression changes into something a little bit softer. Laurence doesn't ask again, instead continuing to watch Tharkay’s face; his eyes look almost unfocused, now. 

“The ocean’s  _ right there,” _ Tharkay says after a while, lifting a hand to reach out towards the water’s surface. His face is still blank, but there is open longing in his voice, as if he wishes more than anything to throw himself into the waves. 

Laurence knows that feeling all too well. He does not say so out loud, not where there is somebody to hear. If he can be very still and very quiet, he thinks, perhaps Tharkay will forget that he is speaking to another human being. 

Tharkay does not look at him, does not look away from the sea. “It isn’t so bad when I’m inland,” he says, like it is a great secret. “As long as I can’t see the ocean I can forget —” and he does not say what exactly it is that he can forget. 

The sea is the same dark blue as Laurence’s old navy uniform. He stays silent and waits to see if Tharkay will tell him any more. 

There is another long pause. “You should go to Temeraire,” Tharkay says, more quietly than before.

“You should come with me,” Laurence says, and finally Tharkay looks away from the horizon. 

“Perhaps I should,” and he stands from his place on the deck and walks, alongside Laurence, away from the edge. 

  
  


 

_ (Fact: On average, a male harbour seal lives from twenty to twenty-five years.)  _

_ (Fact: It has been twenty-four years since Tenzing last laid eyes on his skin.)  _

  
  


 

They sleep in the same tent on their trek through the desert; at first they attempt to remain on opposite sides of it, but gradually the two of them move closer together until they start to wake up curled around one another’s bodies like a pair of lovers. 

Laurence remembers what Tharkay told him on the  _ Allegiance, _ of course he does, but he does not mention it. They're halfway through a desert now, as far from water as it is possible for them to be, and so he does not have to worry that Tharkay will — do something rash. Still, the thought makes him hold Tharkay closer at night; it is both selfish and hypocritical to the extreme, but it  _ scares _ Laurence, to think that he might lose his Tharkay so soon. 

And if his sleep is calmer for it, his breathing easier and his nightmares fewer — well, that’s nobody’s business but Laurence’s. 

  
  


 

_ (Fact: Sea otters anchor themselves in kelp forests in order to stay in place while they sleep.) _

_ (Fact: With Will here and holding him, Tenzing could almost feel like he is home.)  _

  
  


 

Laurence and Temeraire move into Tharkay’s estate very nearly by accident, but by the time Laurence realises that it is somewhat odd to spend this much time here Tharkay has already built a pavilion for Temeraire and placed Laurence into the bedroom down the hall from his own, which means that there is no leaving. Laurence wants to regret taking advantage of Tharkay’s hospitality, but finds that he cannot, not when it puts him so very close to the man.

On one of the days in which Temeraire is in Parliament and Tharkay has gone with him, Laurence goes looking around the house that appears to have become his own: Tharkay has been tearing the place apart looking for something, and while Laurence isn’t sure of what the object is — “You’ll know it if you see it,” Tharkay had told him the one time that Laurence asked, and had been unwilling to say anything more — he thinks that perhaps he could rule out a few places before Tharkay returns. 

In a corner of a back room that Laurence doesn’t  _ think _ Tharkay has searched yet, tucked beneath a table, there is a wooden chest covered in dust. Laurence would leave it alone, were it not for a note in yellowed parchment tucked into a cloth band wrapped around it:  _ For safekeeping. _

The latch does not open easily, rusted as it is, but when it does there is an animal skin the soft silver of the ocean in Scotland mottled with the dark grey of clouds before a storm. Laurence takes it out of the chest, runs his hands over it — it’s still soft, he notes, and it smells like the sea. When he unfolds it he finds that it’s a sealskin, and a complete one. 

Suddenly, everything falls into place. 

_ For safekeeping. _ The note is not in any handwriting that Laurence can recognise, but he sends whoever wrote it a fervent prayer of thanks. 

  
  


 

_ (Fact: Salmon use the Earth’s magnetic field to return, without fail, to the place where they were born, no matter how far away they've journeyed since.) _

_ (Fact: In London, miles away from his estate, Tenzing could swear that he feels Will’s hands run over his ribcage.)  _

  
  


 

Laurence keeps the sealskin in his room until Tharkay returns. 

There is no question of what he will do with it, no consideration or conflict. Perhaps there should be. Laurence does not claim to be an expert on selkie brides, but as a child he heard the same tales as everybody else, and he remembers them now: “Once a selkie has found her skin,” Laurence’s older brother once told him when their father wasn't listening, “neither chains of steel nor chains of love can keep her from the sea.” 

Perhaps there should be. But there isn't. 

Tharkay comes home three days after Laurence finds the skin, Temeraire in tow. Laurence speaks with Temeraire before he does anything else, of course — the war is over, but he will always be first and foremost an aviator — but that night, he knocks on Tharkay’s door.

Tharkay opens it, stands in the entryway. “Will?” He looks as if he had been expecting somebody else. 

“I think I found the thing you were looking for,” Laurence says, for once without preamble. He holds out the sealskin, watches Tharkay shiver at the motion. “I never knew you were a selkie, Tenzing.” 

“My skin was lost to me more than twenty years ago,” Tharkay says, almost absently. His eyes do not leave the sealskin; he reaches out, but does not touch it. “There seemed no need to say it aloud.”

Laurence swallows and holds it out again. “It is lost to you no more,” he says, and the look of surprise on Tharkay’s face hurts more than he thought it would. “I — I suppose this means goodbye, then?”

Tharkay blinks twice, then says, “Will, do you know how few people would have given this back to me?” 

He does not, and he tells Tharkay as much. 

There’s a soft, artless smile on Tharkay’s face, before he reaches up and pulls Laurence down to kiss him, the sealskin held between them. “I love you,” he says as he pulls away — and Laurence smiles back, and kisses him again. 

  
  


 

_ (Fact: When a hermit crab outgrows its shell, it sheds it and searches for a larger one.)  _

_ (Fact: For almost as long as he can remember, Tenzing’s home has been carried on his back — and it may be stationary now, but it holds three.) _


End file.
